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AP Photo/Gerald Herbert Tara Orlando of Floyd, Virginia, a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, cheers for passing motorists to honk, amongst a group of competing candidate Hillary Clinton supporters outside the University of South Carolina School of Law, where Clinton and Sanders are to participate in a CNN town hall style televised event in Columbia, South Carolina, Tuesday, February 23, 2016. This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post . A couple of months ago, it appeared that the Republican presidential field was a fragmented fratricidal mess, with party disarray and deadlock on display all the way to the Cleveland convention. The Democrats, meanwhile, were on track to an early nomination and party unity. Things didn’t quite work out that way. Hillary Clinton could still lock up the nomination by the last primaries on June 14, but not without relying on superdelegates. Here are the numbers: Clinton has 1,769 pledged delegates won in caucuses...

AP Photo/Albuquerque Journal, Eddie Moore Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson speaks at a news conference during which he announced he is leaving the Republican Party in favor of seeking a presidential nomination as a Libertarian, at the State Capitol in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wednesday, December 28, 2011. A previous version of this article appeared at The Huffington Post . T wo former Republican governors are running for president and vice president on the Libertarian line. They are Gary Johnson, 63, former New Mexico governor, and William Weld, 70, former governor of Massachusetts. The Libertarian Party holds its nominating convention in Orlando, Florida, over Memorial Day weekend. The Libertarian Party could play the spoiler role in 2016 for Donald Trump, just as Ralph Nader did in 2000, but this time helping to tip the election to the Democrat. Its minor-party counterpart on the left, the Green Party led by standard bearer Jill Stein, is far less likely to draw a comparable...

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Spokane, Washington, Saturday, May 7, 2016. An earlier version of this article appeared at The Huffington Post . W e are starting to see the sorry spectacle of a Republican establishment that detests Donald Trump falling in line behind his candidacy. Before it’s over, schisms will be papered over, the vast majority of Republican elected officials will endorse Trump, and he will pick up plenty of Republican donors as well. You can see all this in the well-choreographed back-pedaling by House Speaker Paul Ryan and by RNC Chairman Reince Preibus, and in the increasing isolation of the few senior Republican elected officials such as Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who have pledged never to support Trump. A week ago, I wrote in this space that “efforts by Republican leaders to block Trump’s election to the presidency will only intensify.” Well, that prediction sure has been overtaken by events. What...

Ron Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images House Speaker Paul Ryan conducts his weekly press conference in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, April 21, 2016. An earlier version of this article appeared at The Huffington Post . W e keep hearing that the Republican Party is on track to suffer an epic split over the presumed nomination of Donald Trump. But what exactly does this mean? What happens once the 2016 election is over? On one side are traditional business conservatives, devoted to government-bashing, low taxes, and pro-corporate globalization—coupled with dog-whistle appeals to racism. This establishment has delivered all recent GOP nominees, despite the Tea Party takeover of much of the congressional Republican Party—until this year when the party elite was upended. Since Reagan, the business right has papered over the cracks in a coalition that used social conservatism to win votes of a suffering working class. Now, Trump has demolished that phony alliance. Over the...

AP Photo/Matt Rourke Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign stop, Monday, April 25, 2016, at City Hall in Philadelphia. H illary Clinton and her advisers now face an excruciating dilemma for the November election. Go left or go center? Typically, a Democrat moves left to win the nomination and then moves center to capture swing voters in the general election. But this is no ordinary election. For starters, the Sanders campaign has been the source of energy and excitement—not just the kids, but the white working class voters whom Hillary will need to win back. Polls suggest that few Sanders backers will defect to Trump. That’s not the problem. The problem is how many will just disengage, stay home, refuse to work hard for the ticket, or even vote for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. And what it would take for Clinton to win over disaffected blue-collar voters who were once Democrats but who now are inclined to vote for a pseudo-populist...